Conservatives do not Agree on Crime

Even though they are Conservatives, they do not agree on how to tackle crime. The Cameron Tories in the United Kingdom have taken a completely different stance than the Harper Conservatives. They know that being "tough on crime" costs a lot of money. The Cameron Conservatives are now undoing everything that Labor had done, which is ironically against the Harper Conservatives' ideology.

In the US, some conservatives recognize that prison is not the whole solution to the crime problem. They say that it will make some low-risk offenders do repeat offences and it simply costs a lot. Jail means paying money to have more people commit crime.

Just how conservative are Conservative crime measures, really? In Britain, the Conservative government of David Cameron is working assiduously to make Britain’s prison system less costly. The Cameron Conservatives are grappling with the expensive consequences of 21 criminal justice acts introduced by their Labour predecessors, which “increased the cost of prisons by two-thirds and sent the prison population soaring,” according to Justice Secretary Ken Clarke. “My goal is a conservative one: to find effective ways of punishing criminals while reducing public spending,” Mr. Clarke says. In Canada, the situation appears to be reversed. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is emulating Labour.

Read more at the Globe and Mail.

Related articles

• Grits kneecap bill to impose tougher drug crime penalties (ctv.ca)
• NDP blasts Bloc-Tory co-operation (theglobeandmail.com)

Obama Can Beat a Bush?

Even though George W Bush can't run because he has already ran for president twice there is still another Bush who everyone thinks might run. Jeb Bush Bush's brother who some say was the reason Bush won in 2000. Old poll showed that Jeb Bush was 8% behind now a new poll shows Obama at 54% and Jeb Bush at 34% Obama seems to be leading a lot of the potential 2012 candidates, and now the potential field is getting very crowded and it now gets to a point that in the 2012 election it could be the Republican candidate that has more name recognition. Palin could just win, because people know her name and she is very popular with Republicans. The thing is that candidates that are running in 2012 are really reeling on the tea party to support them and although the Tea party candidates can get elected when it comes to specific district, but when it comes to states in general where the independents of the states will chose the winner the Tea party could lose some of those supporters, because the 2012 nominee will spent so much time showing how they are more fiscal responsible and more Right wing then the others they will alienate the independent voters. The Tea party may have destroyed the Democratic majority, but might give Obama the boost to get reelected.

bama outpaces Bush by a 54-34 percent margin in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup. That's a significant uptick for the president from a September poll that indicated that Obama would only beat the younger brother of former President George W. Bush by a spread of eight points.

But National Review editor Rich Lowry later wrote he thinks this is the most favorable election cycle Bush is likely to face, given he has already been out of the governor's office for five years and is by-and-large removed from the public eye.

Read more Here

Secret Toxins

For years, the Quebec government has not revealed what is in one of the most toxic dump sites in Canada, the Mercier lagoons. Yet, there are people living right next to these toxins and government after government has not found it necessary to inform the people living there. I would like to see Jean Charest sleep in a garbage can for twenty years. There have been two studies done on what is in those lagoons and they have used any excuse to be exempt from a Quebec law that says that the population must know what is in those lagoons. This information must be made public. It is our right to know.

Twenty years is a very long time for the Quebec government to deny the residents near the Mercier lagoons information about what exactly lurks in those dumpsites, known to be one of the most toxic in Canada.

Read more at the Montreal Gazette.

The NDP will Fold

The vote on the budget is coming up in March. We seem to be heading on a collision course as the Conservatives refuse to repeal the tax cuts. None of the other parties want to continue the corporate tax cuts as they are wasteful spending when we have a deficit. I have compiled the ways Conservatives could avoid being brought down. 

1. The Tories change the budget so that the corporate tax rates do not get any lower. But, this is very unlikely because a few ministers have mentioned that they are not willing to discuss on this issue.
2. The Conservatives cave in to the Bloc's demands. They are demanding $5 billion in new transfers to Quebec in compensation for harmonizing its sales tax among other things. These demands are completely unreasonable and it does not take a genius to see why Harper will not strike a deal with the Bloc.
3. The Liberals vote for the budget. This is not likely as the Liberals and Michael Ignatieff have mentioned many times that corporate tax cuts must not be continued.
4. The NDP folds. This is the most likely scenario as the NDP has much to lose in an election. Even if it is showing off its new "war room," the NDP is just a few seats shy of the record set by Ed Broadbent. In the next general election, the NDP has the potential to lose a significant portion of its seats and it would probably be smart for them to put it off until later.

In summary, the Tories will not change the budget, the Liberals will vote against the budget, the Bloc's demands will not be met and the NDP will make some excuse for why they will be voting to support Harper.

ST. HYACINTHE, Que. — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has to make a choice: cash for Quebec or an election, says Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe. 

“I am now challenging Stephen Harper to respond to Quebec’s expectations,” a pumped Duceppe said Sunday in a speech closing a party general council meeting. “We are asking for simple fairness, elementary justice.

Read more at the Ottawa Citizen.

Bloc Against Multicuturelism!

On Wednesday the Parti Quebecois put a vote in the national assembly to ban the Kirpan in the national assembly. The Liberals and the ADQ voted in favor of this. This is crazy Canada is a multicultural country that believes in tolerance and Quebec is no exception. The kirpan must be allowed it is not a weapon it is a religious symbol I was very glad that Micheal Ignatieff went for the freedom of religion. It is a religious symbol that should be allowed in all public area like the national assembly. The Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois and even I regret to hear the Liberals of Quebec are against multiculturalism. These sort of policies tell immigrants that they aren't welcome in our free democratic country. This decision must be reversed and I think all the leaders of the Political parties should apologize to the people who live and pay taxes like any other Quebecer, and should have the same freedom as any other person.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/montreal/story/2011/02/09/pq-kirpan-measure.html